Ask Mick: Movies made for the screen not dreams

Movies invade his dreams

Published 5:08 pm, Thursday, August 9, 2012

DEAR ERIC: No, the effect of seeing lots of movies is more subtle. For example, I often have dreams in which the dream itself is a movie, or becomes a movie. I almost never have a dream with actors or actresses in them, although a few months ago Nathalie Baye, circa 1997, showed up in a dream. I was just finishing shaving, and she walked into the bathroom, and we started kissing, and just as it was becoming intense, she backed off suddenly. And when I said, "What?" she said, "You really do need to lose 15 pounds." So sometimes movie dreams can be quite useful from a health and fitness perspective.

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DEAR MICK: My husband and I are curious about how movie critics see movies before they are released.

DEAR PATTI: Three ways: (1.) In private daytime screenings for critics at a small screening room; (2/) At big night-time screenings, with critics mixed in with people who won free tickets on the radio; or, (3.) On DVD, though that's usually only for independent or foreign films. Of the three, I like DVD and night-time screenings, but regard daytime screenings as a necessary evil. At best.

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HI MICK: Lately, routine 1940s and 50s crime films are being released as "film noir." Most of them are not. All the great noirs seem to share common elements. A basically decent person is sucked into a nightmarish world, either through lust or greed or bad luck, that spirals out of their control. The ending is seldom happy. What's your take on what makes a true film noir?

HI RICHARD: "Film noir" is a term invented by French film critics to describe a certain type of American crime movie that looked and sounded a certain way. As few if any filmmakers of the era were consciously trying to make noir movies, "film noir" is a pretty much a designation after the fact.

I would say that the classic film noir, strictly defined, would conform to your description, though I'd also add that noirs are philosophy bleak, their setting mostly urban, and their lighting filled with shadows. Within that strict definition you'll find classic noirs like "Out of the Past," "Lady from Shanghai," "Born to Be Bad," "Detour" and other films.

But film noir is also a feeling, and you know it when you see it. "Kiss Me, Deadly" (1955), for example, has a venal protagonist and a good deal of high-key lighting, but it's very much a noir — in some ways the ultimate late-noir expression.

Companies selling DVDs exploit the wiggle room in the definition to sell any crime melodrama as noir. Still, the wiggle room is real, and in the end it's better to embrace the wiggle for two reasons: (1.) You'll see a lot more good movies; and (2.) Seeing these movies as film noirs may enhance your experience of them. Indeed, that may be the ultimate measure for determining a movie's relative noirness. If a movie is enhanced if you think about it as noir — if it makes more sense and contains more meaning — then it's probably noir.

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DEAR MICK LASALLE: What a terrible review for such a great movie ("For Greater Glory"). Shame on you.

— Nancy Bernal, Sacramento

DEAR NANCY BERNAL: Ever since panning "For Greater Glory," I have been getting withering mail from Catholics all over the country — yours is mild — telling me what a horrible person I am for not liking a movie that has a 6-percent rottentomatoes rating among the country's top critics.

Hey, look, I'm a Catholic myself. But I'm like Jack Kennedy — I've taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, and if the movie is lousy I have to say so, even if the Pope gives it two thumbs up.

Have a question? Ask Mick LaSalle at askmick2012@comcast.net. Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.